Witnesses have revealed new details of the killings in Ukraine of an Italian reporter and his Russian interpreter, Andrey Mironov – who was also a veteran human rights activist, a journalist and a Soviet dissident.

Mironov’s body is currently in a morgue in Slavyansk and might
soon delivered to Russia, media report.

Mironov, 60, was killed along with Italian photojournalist Andrea
Rocchelli, 30, by mortar fire on Saturday near the village of
Andreevka, a couple of kilometers from Slavyansk, eastern
Ukraine. French journalist, William Roguelon was wounded in the
attack.

The journalists were in the area to report on fighting between
local self-defense squads and Kiev forces amid an ongoing
military operation launched weeks ago by the coup-imposed
government to suppress protesters who seek more autonomy.

Following the tragedy, Kiev put the blame for the deaths of the
journalists on “terrorists,” as the new Ukrainian authorities
refer to opposition activists.

Nikolay Goshovsky, a senior official from Ukrainian Prosecutor
General’s Office said that a criminal case on “aggravated
killing” was opened, reported UNN agency. He also stated
that the journalists got killed as armed forces
“responded” to actions of self-defense rather than
during Kiev’s “anti-terrorist” operation.

Witnesses’ accounts, including Roguelon, claim the opposite and
accuse the military of the armed assault.

Evgeny, a taxi driver who also survived the attack, told RT’s
video agency Ruptly that the journalists left his car,
“raised their hands and started taking photos when machine
gun shooting began.” The driver said that he got frightened
and jumped into a nearby ditch where he was then joined by the
Italian and French journalists and the Russian interpreter.

“We were sitting there when the mortar shelling started. The
first shells fell near the ravine but then one shell reached
us,” Evgeny said. “I saw that the interpreter was not
moving at all [after the shelling]. The [Italian] correspondent,
who was sitting next to him, crawled to me and then stopped
moving too.”

The one surviving correspondent, apparently the Frenchman, the
driver said, ran after him towards the car.

“When we got out on the road he ran but then fell on the
ground being shot. I thought he was dead. There was no time to
think, as mortar shelling went on, I dropped into the car and
drove away to the city,” Evgeny added.

Roguelon reportedly managed flee the site and was then taken by
locals to a hospital where he received treatment.

The bodies of the Italian journalist and his Russian interpreter
were found on Sunday morning by local self-defense, witnesses
told Ruptly.

“Apparently, one [of the attacked journalists] got hit into
the head, because the head is absent. The other it seems was cut
by shell splinters,” they said. The witnesses added that the
head of one of the bodies was “torn to pieces” and
“only scull” was left at the site. Documents – Mironov
and Rocchelli passports – were in the pockets of the dead and
parts of two photo cameras were found nearby, they told the
agency.

So far, no official details of the incident have been made
public. Ukrainian law enforcers said Sunday that they could not
examine the site of the deadly incident since the area, according
to their information, was controlled by self-defense forces.

The Italian Foreign Ministry confirmed
Sunday that the Italian reporter was killed during the attack,
adding though that final confirmation can only be made after his
body is identified by relatives. Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey
Lavrov “exchanged condolences” with his Italian
counterpart over the deaths of “Rocchelli and his Russian
interpreter Mironov,” it said in a statement.

On Monday, Ukrainian acting Foreign Minister Andrey Deshchitsa
assured his Italian counterpart Federica Mogherini that Kiev is
ready to investigate the circumstances of the tragedy and assist
in organizing the transportation of the Italian reporter’s body
to his homeland.

Colleagues mourn Mironov who was never 'simply an interpreter'

Svetlana Gannushkina, the head of the Civic Assistance Committee
and a member of Memorial rights organization, also confirmed that
Mironov, their “colleague and friend” was killed near Slavyansk.

Mironov “knew several European languages including
Italian” and “often accompanied journalists, politicians
and members of international rights organizations as an
interpreter,” she said in a statement published on the
committee’s website.

“But never and nowhere had the rights activist and former
political prisoner Andrey Mironov been simply an
interpreter,” Gannushkina said.

In 1985 Mironov was arrested for distributing ‘the samizdat’ –
the underground press and books banned in the USSR and a year
later sentenced to four years in prison in for “anti-Soviet
propaganda,” his colleague recalled. However, as Mikhail
Gorbachev launched perestroika, Mironov along with other
political prisoners was released.

As a rights activist – independently or together with colleagues
– he visited many flashpoints, and repeatedly traveled to
Chechnya during the conflict in the Russian Caucasian republic,
according to Gannushkina.

“A man of a crystal-clear soul was killed,” she said.

Novaya Gazeta (NG) daily published the last report by Mironov
with photos taken by Rocchelli in Ukraine. The paper applied to
Russian Foreign Ministry asking diplomats to help organize
transporting the body of the killed Russian journalist – who
worked for them as a freelancer - to his native soil, reports RIA
Novosti citing NG’s Editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov.